Lorenzo di Credi.—An Angel in Adoration.
dragon, with his horrible mouth wide open, and his terrible claw raised as if to clutch the beautiful maiden.
As a consequence of this experience, I resolved to study the religious symbolism of the early Christian Church, as I had already studied that of the religion of the classic ages. How frequently now, as then, I meet those who perfectly understand the significance of the head of Medusa, or the lyre of Orpheus, who have no conception of the reason for the representation of a church in the hand of St. Jerome, or of the serpent in the chalice of St. John the Evangelist.
There are numerous pictures, in which angels are introduced, that are founded on the Scripture story, but do not follow it strictly. Many subjects are so suggestive of the presence of angels, that there is a legitimate artistic license for introducing them into these scenes.
For example, the Scripture account of the ministration of angels to Jesus, after the Temptation and after the Agony in the Garden, naturally suggests their presence on other occasions of his suffering, and renders their introduction quite permissible.
Thus, in the picture of Christ after the Flagellation, in the Monasterio Maggiore in Milan, by Luini, which is full of the wonderful tenderness of that master, there is no angel; while Velasquez, in his picture of the same subject, which is in a private collection in England, introduces such a presence.
So in the story of the Ecce Homo no angel is mentioned, and the usual devotional picture represents the half figure of Christ, or the head alone, wearing the crown of thorns. The historical picture portrays the scene before Pilate, with a number of figures. Some artists, however, have presented this subject differently, as in the picture by Moretto, in the Museo Tosi in Brescia.
This shows the Saviour seated upon the steps of a building, probably that in which was the “common hall,” in which the soldiers crowned him. He still holds the reed sceptre, though his hands are bound; the cross is on the ground before him, and his head is bowed upon his breast. On the steps behind him, and a little above, stands a weeping angel, holding the garment of Christ as if about to wrap it around him. The expression in the convulsed face of the angel is remarkable. It is as if he endeavored to restrain his tears, but could not. A much later picture by Landelle, called the Angel of Tears, is similar to that of Moretto in sentiment; in it a weeping angel kneels before a crown of thorns, his tears falling over his cheeks.